Peter King is a judge and former Unionist

politician A politician is a person active in party politics, or a person holding or seeking an elected office in government. Politicians propose, support, reject and create laws that govern the land and by an extension of its people. Broadly speaking ...

Northern Ireland Northern Ireland ( ga, Tuaisceart Éireann ; sco, label= Ulster-Scots, Norlin Airlann) is a part of the United Kingdom, situated in the north-east of the island of Ireland, that is variously described as a country, province or region. Nort ...

. King is a member of the Bar of England and Wales (Gray's Inn 1993), the Bar of Northern Ireland (1994) and the Bar of Ireland (2009), and was an active member of the

Ulster Unionist Party The Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) is a unionist political party in Northern Ireland. The party was founded in 1905, emerging from the Irish Unionist Alliance in Ulster. Under Edward Carson, it led unionist opposition to the Irish Home Rule m ...

(UUP).Dean Godson, ''Himself Alone: David Trimble and the Ordeal of Unionism'', p.298 He headed the party list in South Antrim for the 1996

Northern Ireland Forum The Northern Ireland Forum for Political Dialogue was a body set up in 1996 as part of a process of negotiations that eventually led to the Good Friday Agreement in 1998. The forum was elected, with five members being elected for each Westmin ...

election, and was easily elected. He worked with David Brewster and Dean Godson on the UUP's "Strand I" team at the talks which led to the

Good Friday Agreement The Good Friday Agreement (GFA), or Belfast Agreement ( ga, Comhaontú Aoine an Chéasta or ; Ulster-Scots: or ), is a pair of agreements signed on 10 April 1998 that ended most of the violence of The Troubles, a political conflict in No ...

. King did not stand in the

1998 Northern Ireland Assembly election The 1998 Northern Ireland Assembly election took place on Thursday, 25 June 1998. This was the first election to the new devolved Northern Ireland Assembly. Six members from each of Northern Ireland's eighteen Westminster Parliamentary consti ...

, and became known as an opponent of the Good Friday Agreement, acting as a spokesman for the anti-agreement Union First group. He also became chairman of the Young Unionists. King was suggested as a possible UUP candidate in the

2000 South Antrim by-election Clifford Forsythe, the Ulster Unionist Party Member of Parliament for South Antrim, died on 27 April 2000; as result, a by-election was held in the constituency on 21 September 2000. Candidates The election arose after the Good Friday Agreemen ...

,Unionist dilemma over South Antrim seat
, ''

BBC News BBC News is an operational business division of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) responsible for the gathering and broadcasting of news and current affairs in the UK and around the world. The department is the world's largest broad ...

'', 29 April 2000 but the party instead stood

David Burnside David Wilson Boyd Burnside (born 24 August 1951) is an Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) politician, who was the Member of Parliament (MP) for South Antrim from 2001 to 2005. Burnside was also a Member of the Northern Ireland Assembly (MLA) for ...

. In 2001, he was part of a group of anti-agreement UUP members who met with

John de Chastelain Alfred John Gardyne Drummond de Chastelain (born 30 July 1937) is a British-Canadian retired army officer and diplomat. De Chastelain was born in Romania to Scottish and American parents and was educated in England and Scotland before his famil ...

of the

Independent International Commission on Decommissioning The Independent International Commission on Decommissioning (IICD) was established to oversee the decommissioning of paramilitary weapons in Northern Ireland, as part of the peace process. Legislation and organisation An earlier international b ...

. During the previous mandate of the Northern Ireland Assembly, King was a Special Advisor to the

First Minister of Northern Ireland The First Minister and deputy First Minister of Northern Ireland are the joint heads of government of the Northern Ireland Executive and have overall responsibility for the running of the Executive Office. Despite the different titles for the two ...

. King returned to full-time practice as a criminal defence barrister in May 2011. He was appointed a District Judge in November 2013. In 2014 he found that the evidence against three people was insufficient for them to be sent for trial by jury in relation to the Death of Robert HamillBelfast Telegraph
/ref>

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:King, Peter Year of birth missing (living people) Living people Judges in Northern Ireland Members of the Northern Ireland Forum Ulster Unionist Party politicians